Top 10 Blizzard Games

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Blizzard hasn't made many games, but pretty much all of them are classics. We rank the best of Blizzard.

By IGN PC Team

While Blizzard Entertainment hasn't made many titles, the few games that the company has done have(for the most part) been genre-defining titles as well as instant classics. With a demanding eye for quality, Blizzard has avoided many of the pitfalls with its properties that other companies continually fall into. Let's face it--Warcraft Adventures and StarCraft: Ghost would probably have been mistakes on Blizzard's near perfect track record if they'd been released. On the eve of BlizzCon 2009, we thought we'd go over the catalogue of RPG, RTS and MMO games and establish the Top 10 titles from the industry-leading company. Take a trip down memory lane with this list.

Well, we may not have a Blizzard today if not for this 1992 side-scrolling puzzle/platform game by Silicon & Synapse. Prior to this, the company had mainly been involved in developing ports of other games, but with The Lost Vikings Silicon & Synapse created its first franchise; The Lost Vikings II shipped three years later. Eventually, Silicon & Synapse changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment, and the rest is history. It's also worth noting that these were console games, so whenever Blizzard hints at working on a console game and PC gamers freak out about some kind of weird betrayal, the company refers back to The Lost Vikings to remind people that it has a history in the console market.

Just whenever we suspect that the steam driving World of Warcraft is beginning to cool down, Blizzard releases a gigantic new expansion with all the fanfare of a major title, complete with huge midnight crowds eager to get their mitts on the game. Lich King revitalized the game and the user base, and its proof that WoW could still be kicking more than a decade from now. Consider that Ultima Online recently hit its 10th anniversary, and it's never had anywhere close to the user base of WoW. But beyond that, Lich King delivered a staggering amount of high-quality content to keep even the most rabid WoW player engaged for a long time to come.

In 1994, Blizzard released a title set within a time of chaos in a magical realm. No one could possibly imagine the impact that Warcraft could have on real time strategy and PC gaming in general. The land of Azeroth presented a gigantic battle between humans and orcs, which further expanded towards elves, the undead, trolls and other races. The original game spawned two sequels with expansion packs that fully fleshed out the world of Azeroth into a battle-torn planet trapped between factions seeking destruction of each other. Without Orcs and Humans, the monster known as World of Warcraft could not exist.

Building on the strength of the original game, Diablo II took the action RPG into a larger, more epic quest. Players now had five selectable character classes to choose from, four acts to defeat the denizens of Hell, and the ability to collect suits of armor and weapons. Like the first title, Diablo II randomly generated dungeons, monsters and loot. Players could also join together to battle through the game co-operatively or engage in duels with your friends.

Up to 2002 Blizzard had built its empire on 2D games. With Warcraft III, the company finally made the leap to full 3D and it has never looked back. But Warcraft III is much more than just a transition game; it's also an incredibly storytelling experience that helped set many of the elements in World in Warcraft in motion. Reign of Chaos also introduced controllable heroes that gained experience with each kill, adding RPG elements to the RTS. WarCraft III also expanded the conflict to four races, including the Night Elves and Undead as factions that made the battles across Azeroth feel like a global war for survival.

StarCraft established a deep universe between three races fighting for dominance over the galaxy. But while the initial story of Raynor, Kerrigan and Tassadar established the back story of the franchise, Brood War took the series in a radically darker direction, with plots involving Kerrigan betraying the Protoss and Terrans and the dismantling of the United Earth Directorate. Introducing new units and stronger AI, Brood War seemed to be the final chapter of the franchise. Fortunately, its influence has had a massive effect on the upcoming StarCraft II trilogy, making it vital to the canon of the series.

In 1996, Blizzard created a unique action RPG that tasked players with saving a tiny town and therefore the world by defeating the demons of Hell and Diablo himself. Taking on the role of a warrior, rogue or sorcerer, players explored the dungeons below the town of Tristram in search of tools to defeat this threat. One of the largest features of the game was the randomly generated dungeon layouts with varying sets of items and monsters, which made the game incredibly replayable. Some people have derided the game as a clickfest; however, the balance of action and story within Diablo and massive drops of loot from defeated monsters have influenced many RPGs and MMORPGs to this day.

Warcraft II is the game that proved that the original Warcraft wasn't just a weird fluke. Bigger and grander than its predecessor, Warcraft II is the game that really helped cement real-time strategy as a genre. It also proved RTS could be an incredible multiplayer experience. This is one of the very first RTS games that we played over a network, back when network multiplayer was a budding concept. The resulting battles kept us up late at night, and in hindsight it's easy to see how the building blocks to such blockbuster multiplayer experiences as StarCraft were laid down in this game.

StarCraft

How many games do you know that are the national sport of an entire country? Didn't think so – StarCraft became a cultural phenomenon in South Korea, where the title is played with a fervent zeal that borders on religion. But much more than a cultural phenomenon that was launched 11 years ago, StarCraft refined much of the real-time strategy genre with a galactic battle between three species: the Terran soldiers, the insect-like Zerg and the psionic Protoss. Widely considered to be one of the best computer games of all time, Starcraft's impact on Blizzard and the PC world is undeniable.

World of Warcraft

There's no denying the juggernaut that is World of Warcraft. Sure, Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft were huge games, but they pale in comparison to the wild success of Blizzard's signature MMO. WoW bulldozed the competition and became the gold standard for everyone else in the online space. It has entered the mainstream consciousness (who can forget the South Park parody?), and now there's a Sam Raimi movie in development. Just as WoW reshaped the MMO market, it changed Blizzard itself, giving the company a revenue stream that's the envy of the industry and beyond. The need to support WoW exploded the size of the company, as well; Blizzard has its own campus in Southern California. Years from now, it'll be easy to look back and see two Blizzards. The already respected development house that existed pre-World of Warcraft, and the titan that emerged after World of Warcraft.